The grace to forgive

Read Matthew 18:21-35

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Luke’s shorter form of the Lord’s Prayer makes no abbreviation of the line “forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Lk.11:4). Forgiving others is an essential part of our being forgiven by God (cf. Mt.6:12-15). For how can those who have been forgiven so much by God withhold forgiveness from others?

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This parable hammers it home. A servant has a debt so vast that it could never be repaid, yet “the servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go” (27). Such is God’s grace given freely to each one of us in Jesus (Acts 13:38; Eph.1:7). It’s astounding then to read that the servant was unwilling to forgave a trivial sum owed to him by “a fellow-servant" (32), yet that’s what we do whenever we hold on to a wrong done to us.

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However deep and painful are the sins done to us, having been forgiven so much more by our holy Father we must not refuse to show grace to those who have wronged us. So whenever you reach this line of the Lord’s Prayer, recall your own great debt which God has cancelled. And then pray for anyone who has sinned against you, asking God to give you the grace to “forgive your brother from your heart” (35; Eph.4:32).